I’ve been looking forward to the New England Quilt Expo since last year and it was definitely worth the wait. The event is only a few years old and put on by the fine folks at Bits N Pieces in Pelham, NH. There are four days of classes, quilt exhibits and group events–a wonderful way to grow your skills and meet others from the New England area.
I taught a class on how to use Cuddle® to self-bind a cotton quilt, and then another on the fundamentals of foundation paper piecing. We had a great time getting to explore these techniques, from the very basics. They were fairly small classes, which I often prefer for these beginner-friendly workshops. It takes away the expectations of other students who are more skilled and allows students to get more one-on-one attention.
Hawke joined me for the two days of Elemental Coat workshops, which started as just one day and sold out so fast, they had to add another!
We had a great time watching quilt coats come together, which is (no surprise) my favorite part of teaching. Everyone shows up with a quilt or fabric that they are willing to chop up and try to make it wearable.
Some are incredibly cautious and bring pre-quilted fabric they bought at the Jo-Ann clearance sales.
Others bring quilts they’ve found at a thrift shop or estate sale.
Others bring quilts they have made, sometime in the past, something that has lived its best life as a quilt and needs to be re-purposed or needs to find its calling by becoming a coat.
Then there are others who bring precious quilts that have a deep and personal meaning. I love watching them all go from quilt to coat.
In our two workshops, we saw more than 30 coats comes together and it was magical. My favorite part, though, might have been the comments from folks passing by as they went to visit the quilt exhibition. “What are you doing?” “Are you going to cut that up?” “Oh my, how could you?!” We heard it all! And then they’d see students later and the comments changed to “Oh, that’s beautiful” “I love your quilt coat” and “Wow, your coat is amazing!”
Check out some of the amazing work from my students over the two days:
Each nite the sponsors hosted an evening event including live music, an ice cream social and on Friday night a dinner with keynote speakers–us! Hawke and I shared our story of collaboration through life, work and art. Despite the nerves, it was a wonderful experience and I’m truly honored to have been asked. Hawke stepped up and really did most of the behind-the-scenes work on creating a powerpoint presentation to share with photos of a variety of quilts and projects we’ve worked on along the way, including our latest collab with Crinkle Dreams.
Thanks to everyone who came to visit, spent the day with me in class and shared the time with us in New Hampshire.
Happy sewing!
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